


Cain and Abel

by neverwitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Bible, Bible Quotes, Bible Stories, Biblical References, Death, Murder, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 02:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15402690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwitch/pseuds/neverwitch
Summary: "I did it all to save him.""And so you have - by Sin."The tale of Cain and Abel re-told through the version of Supernatural canon.





	Cain and Abel

**Author's Note:**

> I always wanted to explore the story of the two brothers further after watching SPN season 9. I thought the writers were creative with their take on the Scripts. For anyone else curious about the full version of events, here it is.

“Cain.”  
“Yes?”  
“You know I love our Father.”  
“Do you mean Adam or the Lord?” asked Cain.  
“The Lord.”  
Cain raised an eyebrow.  
“As we all do, Abel. But what makes you express it all of a sudden? Does the bounty of your flocks remind you of him in gratitude?” He asked, smiling. He had meant it as a jest, but Abel did not smile back. He looked far into the distance instead, a thoughtful expression on his brow. Cain noticed his younger brother did this often, lately. He had grown…pensive. His flock of sheep grazed in the green in front of them and painted a peaceful picture, along with the warm sunlight filtering through the leaves and gentle hills rolling beyond the field they rested in. A stray white lamb wandered away from the mass towards its master. Clipping and clopping in small steps, it approached Abel and butted its head into his hand. Abel barely spared it a glance as he absently took it into his bosom, gently cradling it with his hands. The lamb looked up and blinked its innocent eyes.  
“But does He love us?” He asked, quietly, almost to himself. He fingers wandered over the lamb’s head and gently raked through its young fur, scratching it the way beasts usually find pleasant. The lamb bleated softly, slowly closing and opening its eyes.  
Cain looked at his brother in amazement. He furrowed his brows as he replied, “Why do you question such a matter that has nothing to be questioned? Look around you!” He exclaimed, gesturing to the lush earth around them.  
“Our Father has given everything we behold and all the things we need. He has provided us with everything we have; food, fire, and shelter. That is more than what the pagans claim their Olympian gods to have done for them. Their so-called gods forbade them fire and forced them to become a thief in order to live, unlike our generous Father. He has kept nothing from us so cruelly. Far from it. We are living his greatest gift, Abel—the World. You know this,” said Cain earnestly. He searched his brother’s half-turned face for a look of reassurance, but found clouded thoughtfulness instead.  
"Nothing, you say?" Abel murmured. "You seem to forget—that this world is only one of many, and Man used to belong to another. A better, happier land of bliss... until the Lord banished our mother and father from Paradise."  
"But that was of their own doing," Cain reasoned. He could not understand why his brother was beginning to doubt the Lord now, why his tone was colored with the faint pallet of resentment that had never colored it before.  
"They sinned against His will and took the forbidden fruit. He warned them against the very thing, and if they had only heeded—"  
"But the serpent tricked them into the deed, Cain. How could have an innocent, unsuspecting woman such as Eve our mother, known any better? The Lord banished them from their home—their rightful home—for one mistake made by the deceit of Satan. If He truly loved our mother and father, do not you think He would have given them another chance, would have forgiven them? He talks of forgiveness and love to us while He—"  
Abel stopped himself from going further, for the flash in his brother's eyes warned him of blasphemy.  
"I have thought about this for some time Cain," continued Abel in a low voice, not meeting his eyes. "But I cannot see how the punishment fits the crime. And it hurts me to think He does not return His children's love."  
Silence met his words. Cain made no answer, taken aback and feeling betrayed somehow. All those times spent in pensiveness, distant from him either physically or mentally—had he been spending them thinking about this?  
His voice was sad when at last, he spoke.  
"You have never been like this before. You have never questioned our Father's judgement, never been resentful of our parent's fate. Nor have you ever been discontent with what we have. God favors you, yet you threaten to turn against him. What has happened to you, Abel?"  
Abel looked down, hands clenched into fists against the lamb. The small thing nuzzled its nose against its master's arm, as if it sensed his tension and desired to soothe. When he said nothing, Cain entreated him.  
"Abel, look at me."  
When he did his eyes spoke of doubt and anger, cloaked in a thin film of sorrow, as if he too was struggling with himself. The look was foreign on his features and a sharp contrast to what his expression used to be.  
"You seek our Father's presence often. He speaks to you often in return," Cain tried again, holding his gaze. "Surely He has spoken to you of this and answered your doubts?"  
He wanted to find something there. A confirmation, perhaps. Something that might give him hope and lessen the anxiousness building inside his heart.  
And guilt was not one of them.  
Yet he saw it flicker across Abel’s face just before he dropped his gaze. Cain narrowed his eyes, not looking away.  
“Abel, speak.”  
“I…have not spoken with Him for a while.”  
A weight sank within him at Abel’s reply. A chilling thought started to creep up his spine, making its way like a vine up his back. He forced it down, not now, not yet. This dawning thought of his, he still might be wrong. It could not be.  
“What do you mean?” He asked tentatively. “I saw you on your knees and giving prayer every evening. You did so only yester-eve, just before the nightingale drowned the hush of dusk.”  
“I did,” replied Abel slowly, “but not to Him.”  
The lamb stirred its legs in his arms as the morning sunlight touched its soft fleece. It no longer nuzzled against his skin, but shied its head away from his bosom instead. Something was changing. Cain’s pupils shrunk in alarm.  
“Then who have you been talking to?” He demanded to know. The vine crept up a little higher, a little stickier on his bones. His skin crawled at what his mind suggested and he had to fight to keep his voice from going faint. He already guessed the answer and denied it long before the name fell from Abel’s lips.  
“The Morningstar.”  
The lamb bleated loudly and started kicking its thin legs. It was wriggling to be free of his arms, as if it no longer wanted to be held by its master. Seeing this, Abel released his hold upon the youngling and let it go. His gaze trailed behind it as it returned to its place in the flock.  
“No.”  
“I am sorry Cain, but it is he who I’ve been communing with,” said Abel. This time he looked at his brother. Wrath and disbelief stared back at him.  
“Do not tell me you are sorry. Tell me why,” said Cain through gritted teeth. Abel sighed.  
“Believe me when I say this—I did not seek him out. He came to me one night in a dream, when all was asleep.”  
There he paused, as if in recollection of that fateful hour. His eyes held a cupful of dreams.  
“I beheld his true form in my sleep, and found it terrible. More terrible and more beautiful than anything tongue can describe.... The halo from his archangel days was broken and barely traceable around his head, so pale and sickly it had become. His wings were singed and broken to blackness, and hell-fire crackled among his falling feathers. But his face—no mortal face can express so much pain, misted by shadows yet still, still so full of ethereal light. His voice was honeyed dew among fresh grass in cold dawn, and before I knew what was happening, he was addressing me...” He drifted. He had a look of rapture upon him, as though he saw something that Cain could not see.  
“Abel!” cried Cain, horrified. “He is the firstborn Devil himself who caused the very Banishment you resent. And yet you listened to every word he said?”  
“Lucifer was an archangel before he fell,” muttered Abel, as though in weak defense of him. “And yes, he brought about the damnation of Man in Eden, but who commanded the Banishment itself?”  
Thus questioning he looked up, a dangerous light in his expression.  
“The Lord. Lucifer has told me he rues the day he whispered poison into our mother’s ear, for the Lord condemned him to crawl upon his belly ever since, should he surface above Hell in mortal form. A just punishment for himself, he added. What he does not see as just is the punishment dealt to Adam and Eve. He is sorry for the sorrow he caused, Cain. He never knew the Lord would be so severe upon Mankind, the beings He had claimed to love above all else.”  
Cain listened, and heard embitterment in his voice. It was a strange thing to hear in his brother’s voice, and it rang hollow in the last few syllables.  
“And those were Lucifer’s words?” he asked. Abel nodded.  
“Of course, I was suspicious at first. The Lord sent him down to Hell and made him the Devil, after all.”  
“Lucifer brought about his own downfall, Abel. He made himself the Devil.”  
“But the sincerity in his voice was undeniable,” continued Abel, as if no one had interrupted him. Cain flexed his jaws in frustration. “And sincerity was what convinced me of his truth. No, listen!”  
He cried suddenly, and took both of his brother’s hands with so much force, it hurt. And Cain was beginning to get frightened. He looked at his own flesh and blood and saw that he was changed.  
“Listen to me.” Abel commanded. “I have heard things from Lucifer, of the Garden. Not one thing sickens or dies in that place, not one tree bears the burden of rot, nor does the seasons change and bring cold at the end of the year. It shall be winter in a few months here, but in there….And the wild beasts are tame under the touch of Man, and not one wishes harm him. There is no need for hard labor, for the dark rich soil offers so much that it overflows without his help. Even the air itself is different, more wholesome, full of grace and beauty that can dare to be compared with that of the Kingdom itself. The Lord keeps nothing from us, you say?”  
Abel laughed a small laugh, a sting of spite underlying it. Cain felt his stomach sicken at the sound.  
“This world which you say He gave to us so generously—it is a cold and barren shadow of what we used to have. The children of God deserve better.”  
Cain swallowed. This was not his brother talking. Not really.  
“And are those words Lucifer’s as well?” he asked.  
Abel paused. For a moment, he looked upset. Anger flashed across his countenance, as the shadow of a bird flits across a field. Then the fire in his eyes started to die, and his expression slowly dissolved into one of confusion. He became quiet once again, but his voice was smaller than ever and held a tremor when he answered him.  
“I do not know.”  
Cain withdrew his hands from him, but not harshly. His hands felt cool and numb as blood rushed back into his fingers after so much pressure, and he could feel the tips slightly trembling.  
“Lucifer, he…” Abel hesitated. He looked down to his knees and hung his head. Cain could sense there was more.  
“What?”  
Abel shifted his sandaled feet on the ground, and drew dust around his heels.  
“…he offered me a way. To find our way back to Eden again, with his help.”

Later that night he lay awake, thinking about all his brother had said in the day. He thought long and hard of what to do, how to make this right again, how to stop Abel from further corruption.  
Oh, but he was in it deep already. He was too far gone.  
The stars looked down on him in silence, beseeching him to find a way. They were millions of heavenly eyes watching over him to see what he would do. Even the nightly chorus members were peculiarly quiet, cricketing unobtrusively, as if to overhear his very thoughts. Cain wondered if all the world knew of what had happened today. He wondered if they, too, were holding their breaths like he was doing right now. Looking up at the darkened skies, he exhaled a shaky sigh.  
He knew what he had to do.  
You lights that illumine every thought of mine, keep my secret till the deed is done.  
Rising from his bed of skins, he got down on his knees and clasped his hands together. Closing his eyes, he silently begged for forgiveness of his Father in Heaven.  
Then he started to pray.  
To Lucifer.  
Each word he uttered in his head, he regretted and reviled in his heart. Each lie he spun out on his tongue, he denounced as false and swallowed back down his throat. Mortifying and humiliating as it was, he knew he had to bear it for the sake of one he loved.  
The night deepened by one hour, then two. Cain rocked himself on his knees as tiredness overwhelmed his still-closed eyes and drowsiness reduced his deep revulsion to bluntness. Eventually he fell asleep, still on his knees and hands clasped together.  
And Lucifer appeared in his dreams.  
“Ah, Cain. So your brother managed to convince you? I expected you to put up more of a fight, but…I am glad nonetheless.”  
Cain looked at him with mistrustful eyes.  
The Fallen one looked very different from the ethereal deity Abel had described. He was dressed in white garments, the kind he and Abel wore at home every day, only whiter and cleaner, with a golden hoop around the waist instead of leather. He wore a smile that spoke of lordliness and benignity at the same time, albeit only one of which was genuine. His wavy hair was fair and reached down to the nape of his neck in curls. His skin was the shade of ivory, not at all rosy—not even the faintest tinge of color adorned his cheeks. His eyes were translucent, icy-blue, so cold and deep that it seemed not any amount of smiles could warm his steady gaze. Cain felt the hairs upon his back stand up as he looked into his eyes. It was like staring at the bottom of a frozen lake, a thick layer of snow settled over its hardened surface. Aside from a curious aura that his mind could not quite touch upon, the Morningstar was…only a man.  
“You are very different from what my brother described,” he remarked. Lucifer tilted his head to the side.  
“I searched out Abel to inspire him with divineness. My appearance, clearly, worked on him. What he claims to be my true form is only one of my many forms. Although I must say, I am rather proud of that particular one. I can be vein.”  
Lucifer smiled, patiently replying in a condescending manner. Cain listened with spite…and fear.  
“Having both of Adam and Eve’s sons on the same page is gratifying,” Lucifer continued. “Finding Eden and entering it once more will be very trying, very difficult tasks. Both for me and for you. We shall help each other, my aid being most essential. I shall now call Abel too, and—”  
“No.”  
Cain interrupted, cutting him off. Lucifer looked at him.  
“No?” He asked, calmly. Cain narrowed his eyes.  
“Did you think I would not know of your plans? Your intentions?”  
“My intention is to atone for one of my greatest sins—causing the banishment of Mankind from Paradise,” answered the Fallen gently. “It is my way of apology to your race. I thought you knew this, Cain. Did you not call out to me in your prayers tonight, begging me to help you get to Eden, too? With Abel?”  
“Curse those hours that I did, yes. But I lied,” spat Cain. “I lied to meet you, because I knew what you were planning. You will not stop with guiding Abel into Eden. You will follow him into Eden yourself, and overpower the Garden. You will take over every unblemished piece of immortal land and twist it into something not even our Father will want to name. You will try to take control of everything, anything outside of your rightful place in Hell out of hatred, and wreak havoc on what our Father created out of love.”  
“Including,” Lucifer interposed coldly, “your brother.”  
His expression had turned frosty. Cain looked into his eyes and saw some reptilian, cold-blooded thing looking back at him. He shuddered as Lucifer’s whole demeanor shifted to something chilling.  
“So it turns out the eldest is not as dull as the youngest.” Satan sneered. “But no matter. You have seen how Abel has changed.”  
“You have corrupted his devotion for the Lord,” Cain stated, warm with rage. “You seek to control him, to beguile him—”  
“Which, you see, I already have.”  
Chuckling, the Devil stepped a little closer to the man and leaned in to pierce him with his gaze.  
“In my archangel days,” he said, slowly, “God sent me on many missions. I moved as He pleased and gave myself over to His plans. But this time it is my mission. And Abel will say yes to my mission. And for that—for that,” here he paused, as if relishing his very favorite part of a feast. Cain tensed.  
“For that his soul shall go down to Hell once his mortal body has done playing its part.”  
Cain’s heart beat in his chest as a bird would beat its wings in a cage. But what Lucifer had said—it was what he had anticipated. It was what he had prepared for in his thoughts, looking up at the stars and pleading in the night.  
He had to speak.  
“That,” he said, barely repressing yet another shudder. “Is what I have called you to talk about.”  
He looked straight into the Devil’s eyes. He looked into those dark pupils that swirled and danced with black fire, and felt he was staring into a whirlpool at the bottom of an ocean, down below from a high, narrow precipice he knew he had to fall down from.  
He felt defiance and unutterable fear, both growing within his breast. He had to fight to contain them from spreading through his entire body like a disease.  
Yet his voice did not shake even a little.  
“I want you to take my soul in the place of my brother’s.”  
A long, solid silence.  
During which Lucifer contemplated him, considering. Cain could not tell if he was astonished or displeased. There was a gleam in those Satanic orbs that could have been anything. He could not tell how many minutes or hours or days had passed when at least, Lucifer opened his mouth.  
“Interesting.”  
“Use me, control me, do with me as you like!” cried Cain. “Only let Abel be, and release his mind from your hands. Trade his soul for mine.”  
“How devotional. Brother’s keeper, are you?”  
Lucifer started to pace. He tread a slow circle around Cain, glancing at his paled face and shaking hands in between steps. When he had drawn a full circle and came face to face with him again, he bore down his dark stare upon him as if to crush him with his mind.  
A boa constrictor, constricting without moving a muscle.  
“I accept your alternative,” he said. “But only on one condition.”  
“Anything,” replied Cain, before he could stop himself.  
Lucifer’s cold smile returned.  
He was enjoying this.  
“You will send your brother’s soul to Heaven yourself.”  
Cain stared.  
The syllables sank into his brain but not the meaning of those sounds.  
His mind took its time to know what it had just heard, dissecting the words and resurrecting them again in the hopes of turning them into something else. Give meaninglessness to meaning. Turn it into nothingness.  
But eventually, broken pieces broke into his skull and slowly settled down, inflicting pain. For a moment his eyes lost focus and saw nothing but the despair spread out before him, an abyss. His head lost its balance on his shoulders and spun.  
“Do you mean I must..?”  
Lucifer made no answer. He had no need.  
Cain understood.  
He closed his eyes. He attempted to imagine it, and found the very thought repulsed him to his innards. His blood vessels pulsed out a sickening beat inside his brain and hurt. He felt his throat run and dry and sting.  
He had never known breathing could be so difficult.  
“The choices are before you, Cain,” said Lucifer. “You can save either his flesh or his soul—never both.”  
Breathe in.  
Breathe out.  
Count every tear behind your eyes.  
“I will save his soul,” he breathed. He did not open his eyes. For he knew, should he unveil them, they would show him Satan, blurry from the screen of unshed tears. And right now he could not bear to see anything but nothing.  
Lucifer spoke.  
“I shall free Abel from my manipulation from dawn to sundown, today. Should you fail to kill him by the time the sun has set completely beyond the horizon, then no deal has ever passed between us. He shall become diseased with my words yet again, and then…you know the rest. Do we have an agreement?”  
“Yes,” whispered Cain.  
“Oh, and Cain?”  
Cain was still.  
“Once the deed is done, I will take you into my service. You will devote your life to serving my ends and shall do whatever I wish, whenever I ask of you, both in this world and the next. You shall forget God and your love for His creations and rejoice in the act of slaughtering the living. Killing your brother,” Lucifer emphasized, savoring his words, “shall only be the beginning.”

When Cain opened his eyes, it was morning. He was lying on his side on his bed of skins under a tree. His tent stood a little way from where he had spent the night. Abel’s tent was farther off. He could see both from his position on the ground.  
Rays of early sunlight tickled his eyelashes, forcing him to sit up to avoid the blinding brightness. The dizziness was gone, but his heart still pounded wildly within his ribs.  
He stood up. Memories of last night’s dream came rushing back to him in torrents, and he had to stop himself from falling down to his knees again and ranting to his Father of what he had done, what he had to do before the day’s end. But he knew he could not speak to Him, not a word. He would surely stop the fulfillment of the deal if He knew. And Cain could not risk that.  
No. He was in this alone.  
Never had any burden, either the ones he carried on his back in the fields every day or the ones he occasionally carried in his heart, felt so utterly, unendurably heavy.  
As soon as he could assume outward serenity once more, he went in search of his brother. Cain found him already awake and prepared to go out into the fields for the day.  
“Good morning, Cain,” he greeted. He met his brother’s keen eyes with a smile. The brooding, the far-away look, the melancholy of the past couple months were gone. In their stead sat cheer and gentleness once more, as if nothing had happened to disturb them.  
“Listen, brother,” began Abel anxiously. “I feel very peculiar today. I know what I said yesterday, how I told you everything…about Lucifer’s visits. My mind was diseased into blasphemy and corruption…but I know now that I was wrong—that the Devil was merely sticking lies into my ears. I woke up this morning and rose from bed, and so my mind rose from the deceit. I see all clearly, now. What has happened to wake me from my madness all of sudden, I do not know—”`  
Cain shifted his weight uneasily.  
“—but I feel as if I have returned to myself in a very, very long time. Cain, I am sorry. I know I have alarmed you and angered our Father in Heaven. How you must have worried! I can only hope for my soul to be spared from Hell after all the horrid things I said.”  
So Lucifer has kept his promise, then.  
“You were dangerously close to Its gates yesterday,” replied Cain, in the most even tone he could manage. “But Father will know of your contrition. Pray to him and seek forgiveness, and you will be spared. You are spared.”  
You have to be.  
“Thank you.”  
Abel did not notice how Cain’s eyes glimmered with a strange ferventness at the end. He was too preoccupied by thoughts of redemptive promises and ways to reconcile himself to his Father again, for his mind was overridden by guilt. He was rightfully ashamed of himself, and Cain almost could not bear the irony of the relief he felt when he saw the faint blush of shame on his brother’s cheeks. Quietly, he said, “Let us go out to the field.”  
They worked all morning. Cain reaped the fruits of what he had sown in the earth and Abel tended his flocks. The little white lamb that had squirmed from his hands yesterday was the first to greet his approach today. It nudged into his ankle in a manner of gentle fondness, as if to acknowledge its master’s remorse. Abel’s warm smile reached to his eyes, and Cain was reminded of Lucifer’s own smile. His skin still remembered its demonic coldness, and crawled at the recollection. He turned away, wondering he could even so much as glance his brother’s way without coughing up the truth all over the ground for all to see—for his Father to see.  
While working, he came across the remains of a large animal, predatory by the look of its sharp fangs and large jaws. The carcass was nearly fleshless, deprived of all fur and intestines. Yellowish-white bones were most of all that was left, including the skull. This was not the first time he had seen this. The same remains had been lying there for weeks, and he had never given it particular attention before. But now he looked at it with cynicism. He stood a little away from his patch of field and continued to stare at the lifelessness, the hollowness for a long time. He frowned, chewed his lips, worried his hands, lost himself in thought, and withered six years on the spot. Then, for the first time since its appearance, he slowly approached the form.  
When he was close enough to have kicked it with his foot (which, he did not), he carefully bent forward, crouching low. Hesitantly, he extended his hand as if to touch the dead thing, then stopped himself. He withdrew his hand as slowly as he had reached out. Then, again, he extended his hand. Yet again he withdrew. He seemed to have a mental battle with himself as his will heaved to overcome the beggarly protest and loathing in his heart.  
For a moment he was still.  
Then, with a force that he surprised himself with, he lunged forth his hand and tore the lower jaw off its hinges from the rest of the skull. It was large and heavy against his palm.  
Cain steeled himself to put it—hide it—inside his clothes.  
And then he walked away, back to the fields.  
The sun beat down on their backs and spilled its light upon their heads as it climbed higher and higher up the firmament. When it reached its zenith and hung there for a while to rest from its ever-moving course, the brothers also stopped. After a short rest, they gathered their tools and set up the altar for the choicest rewards of their labors to be served up to the Lord as offerings.  
Both took special care to set them up this time, each for his own reasons.  
Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the first-born of his flock. Then, he kissed a sprig of fresh hyssop and gently laid it on top of the meat. Both solemnly crossed themselves and got down on their knees before the altar. Now came the time to pray. Abel closed his eyes and bowed his head deeply in penitence. His lips moved in a lowly whispered appeal to the Lord for pardon, for acceptance of his promise to live a faithful, reverential life. With every word he wrung his heart and confessed to every drop of guilt and shame that clung to its cavities. And as he did so, he felt his Father’s presence grow nearer and nearer to his own with every word he spoke. He could feel that He was listening, judging, forgiving. And so he continued, finding comfort and a lightened load within himself.  
Cain however, remained silent. He did not close his eyes. He did not say anything, not even in his mind. He would not dare, for fear of revealing the whole truth of last night. He watched his brother praying and finding peace, and was reminded of a lost cub struggling to find its way back home. A strong desire to do the same threatened to overpower him, and for a second he thought of giving it all up and spilling every fiber of the secret he had created last night, under the unblinking stars.  
The desire for redemption, honesty, and avoidance of bloodshed overwhelmed him.  
But then, Abel’s offering caught on fire.  
When he opened his eyes and found his Father had answered his prayer, a look of tranquility came over his whole demeanor. He turned towards his brother, and Cain could read the pure, wholesome joy of innocence bloom across his face. It was something he had not seen for a long time. Abel smiled, and at that moment Cain could not bring himself to feel sorry for what he had done. This, this was what he had fought for when he summoned Lucifer to his side. If this was what his soul could buy, then how could he not sell?  
The smell of burning mutton wafted around them as the smoke went up in wispy columns. The odor grew stronger and stronger until, suddenly, it faded away and turned into one of burning incense. They looked up to the altar and saw that the meat was gone, and in its stead was an almond.  
Then the Lord appeared before them. He looked upon Abel’s prayer with favor, but wondered at Cain’s silence. He nodded His divine head once to the younger brother in approval, and approached the elder. Cain’s expression was dark despite his attempts to cover it up—the hidden weight inside his chest was so much heavier now that his Father was here. The urge to relieve himself of his burden was maddening, and the act of resisting exhausted him. But he had no other choice; he had already made one that could not be taken back. And he knew this.  
His Father’s holy gaze alighted on his face, but he could not meet His eyes.  
“Why are you upset? Why is your face downcast?” asked the Lord. “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”  
Cain was silent. He tried to say something, anything—but found he could not. His lips were sealed, by his own will or by Lucifer’s he could not tell.  
Then He was gone. His warning lingered in the air and pressed itself against Cain’s ears as if to prolong His omnipresence. Abel looked at him with concern.  
“Cain?”  
Cain exhaled a breath he hadn’t even known he had held.  
“Yes?”  
“You know you can tell me anything.”  
Cain sighed.  
Not this.  
“What troubles you?” asked Abel, eyes narrowed.  
Too many things.  
“Nothing. It is nothing.” Cain shook his head. 

When Cain returned to his tent, he slipped out the jawbone of the animal and turned it in his hands. He clenched and unclenched his fingers around the sharp fangs, accidentally cutting himself whilst deep in torturous meditation.  
He had to be strong. Yet he was finding it increasingly difficult without his Father to guide him or his brother to support him through his suffering. He was aware of the time passing by, of the declining sun and every second of every minute seemed to fly as if on wings. He bitterly lamented merciless Satan, who had spared him not even one last day from the hour of his fate. Anguish boiled over his fingertips as he began to work the bone.  
First, he divided the jawbone in half to make two long, matching pieces. Of these he took one and brought it under the knife. He would chisel the tip to pointed sharpness and carve the sides to edges that would cut.  
The hand that held the knife stopped, stunned and disobedient in its tracks. A low tremor traveled up the arm to the wrist, and soon it began to shake like some poor, brittle branch in a winter breeze as Cain’s cheeks became stained with the tears he had held back for so long.  
His eyes were the sea.  
The sea was leaking, dripping down in a shower of salty rain.  
It threw him into a fury.  
Again, he lunged out his hand in a spurt of inhuman power and started to carve out his weapon. Every grind, every fresh flake to chipped-off bone was accompanied by a silent scream to himself to stop it, stop this. He could not slaughter him, as if a master would slaughter his pig. He told himself over and over that this was not like that, that this was a sacrifice to save what he valued the most in this world, over and over until his own words danced inside his head and yet…  
‘I cannot.’  
But I must.  
The arm that gripped the iron blade and moved in blind, rhythmic motions was already dead, kept driven and alive only by a livid determination to see the end of this, this black deal he had sealed with Lucifer. Lucifer was half sure of his failing to carry out his bitter end of the bargain; the Devil was certain that the bond between the brothers would make him shrink from doing the deed—but then again the Devil misunderstood the bounds of love.  
And Cain was determined to show him.  
With every harsh stroke the bone was formed into the shape of a blade, grimly edged and coerced into fatalness enough to kill. And with every stroke his own body suffered a blow. By the time he had finished, he knew without seeing that his heart was purple and yellowed with bruises.  
Just like the sky outside his tent.  
Sunset had begun.  
Cain stepped outside and raised his eyes to the bleeding heavens, so colorful and beautiful when it meant something so terrible. It was red and orange and pink and violet. He could feel the minutes closing in around him and crushing his throat, as hunting dogs would close their jaws around the throat of the prey.  
Rejoice, and weep not. For today is the day my brother’s soul returns to Heaven and not to Hell, as he might have.  
‘Is it possible to be glad, when an hour more would bring down the title of Hell’s servant upon my head?’  
His hands, which had been heated and blistered from callousing bones and knives for so long, were now cold. He took the finished blade in his hands and gazed at it for a long time. So much had gone into this—his sweat, tears, and a deep sorrow that only the stars of yester-night would know. Eventually, there would be blood on its teeth. He felt nauseous as he stowed it within the folds of his clothes, concealing it from his sight.  
From Abel’s.  
Cain shivered as a light breeze breathed down the back of his neck. It was to be a warm evening, but his skin felt cool and stiff. Everything was now ready, and surreal. All he had to do now was to call Abel to his side, and wait for the opportune moment. But he knew there would never be an opportune moment; there could never be an appropriate time and place, not for this.  
Cain wished he could pray for courage.  
His feet carried him to Abel’s tent. He called out to his brother in a steady voice.  
“Abel, look at the sky! The sunset is lovely today,” he called. “Won’t you come and join me outside for a view?”  
“You always say the sunset is lovely,” his brother answered teasingly. Abel emerged from his tent and stuck his head out the entrance. The fiery glow of the dying day cast its rays upon his face and illuminated his hair, his eyes, his light-hearted expression. Cain could only curse silently to himself and lament—poor, unsuspecting Abel! He could feel the blade brushing against his ribs.  
“But today’s sunset is the loveliest.” He murmured, almost to himself.  
Today’s sunset is the last I will ever spend with you.  
“Oh, alright,” said Abel. “But you know I prefer watching the moonrise.”  
“We—we will watch the moonrise too then, later this evening,” Cain promised, voice almost catching. He knew there could be no such promise. Only such a lie. “We could watch the stars come out too, if you’d like.”  
“Yes,” Abel smiled. “I would like that.”  
We could stay outside until tomorrow dawns above our heads and you could still be alive.  
The sun dipped lower and lower towards the horizon. It was setting rapidly. When the sundown was complete, there would be no second chances. No going back. Cain started to finger the weapon in his clothes. His palms were sweaty and there was a lump in his throat he was afraid he might vomit out if he opened his mouth. His intestines were straining themselves not to splatter out of his stomach all over their feet. He stared ahead onto the distance, seeing nothing yet aware of every passing second as they trickled away like sand between his toes.  
“Cain,” began Abel, rousing him from his paralysis. His brother turned to look at him, eyes strange. Seeing this, Abel was concerned.  
“All you sure you are alright?” he asked, worried. “You seem to be in a dream all day.”  
If only it were a dream, and nothing more.  
“No, I am fine…” murmured Cain, gripping the hidden blade a little tighter in his hand. “You were saying?”  
“I…” Abel lowered his eyes. He wished to say something.  
“When Lucifer told me of his mission to regain Eden, he commanded me to persuade you to join him—join us,” he corrected himself, flushing as if it were a filthy word. Cain listened, conscious of the advance of dusk.  
“Satan asked me to sin against our Father, and I almost assented in my blindness. He asked me to make you a sinner, and I told you of his thoughts as if they were justified and painted his would-be crime in favorable colors. Not only did I endanger myself, but you as well. I—I could have dragged you down to the dregs of Hell with me.”  
Abel lifted his eyes to look at him. They held a pleading light, and Cain understood what it was that he wanted to say.  
“You had me frightened, Abel. The alarm you caused…” he trailed.  
But you are safe now. That is all that matters.  
Abel tried to say something, but Cain gently interrupted him.  
“I know how you feel,” he said softly. His bruised heart trembled inside of him, and it hurt to lay his other hand on his shoulder. But he did, and gripped it firmly, reassuring him.  
That there is nothing to forgive.  
“Redeem yourself to your brother by an embrace, and leave the rest of the apologies be. There is no need for more, Abel.”  
Smiling, Abel did. The heavens watched over them as they were reconciled, standing there with the last rays of daylight settling around their shoulders just before the dreaded twilight. Abel closed his eyes and breathed, all weight now lifted and gone from him. Now he knew that all the ones he loved was at peace with him.  
There was a sickening crunch.  
His eyes widened as he felt something bury itself deep between his ribs, into his chest.  
Blood seeped through the white of his clothes and dyed it a rich red.  
Streams ran down between his legs and dripped.  
He could not even gasp.  
Through the burning pain he could feel something else, something else that wracked through his brother’s body.  
It was a sob.  
Cain fell to the ground onto his knees as his brother’s lifeless form sank down with him.  
“I am sorry,” he whispered. Sobs filled the blank spaces in between his breaths and the words that could mean nothing to either of them.  
“I am sorry.”  
For the entire gloaming he sat like that, frozen and shaking at the same time, unable to pull away. He did not want to see Abel’s blank face, nor did he have the strength to rise from the blood-soaked soil. There was a ripping sensation within his entire torso, a pain so potent it was unbelievable how his humble flesh of dust and earth could endure it without falling apart. He desperately pressed the cooling body to his chest, as if that way he could keep his own cracking body from disintegrating into stones.  
He wanted to disintegrate into pebbles. Maybe if he did, this inhuman ache would pass away.  
Suddenly, there was a searing pain on his arm. As he watched, there appeared upon his forearm a scorch—a mark that was being branded upon him before his very eyes. Fume arose as the spot on his skin was scalded into a red, angry scar. Cain watched with horror as the mark finished itself with a dull pang. A voice, clear and ominous, rang inside his head.  
“This is the Mark of Cain, and by this mark I hereby dub you Knight of Hell.”  
Cain cried out into the dusk.  
“Have I satisfied you, now!”  
He roared.  
“Have I done all that you asked of me…”  
Nothing answered his cries. He groaned, and at last let go of his brother’s body. It was cold as ice, and pale. He rose unsteadily on aching legs and carried Abel in his arms to his grave.  
The nameless, desolate grave he would have to dig himself. 

When he had dropped the last clog of earth on Abel’s body, he returned to his tent. He was weary with grief, and the knowledge that he had done the right thing in salvaging his brother’s soul did nothing to ease the intensity of it. His eyes stung and his head pounded in time with his thick heartbeat, and his cheeks felt prickly with dried tears. Blood-stained and salt-stained, he cleansed himself of his last ordeal as best as he could through the fog of overwhelming exhaustion.  
When he had finished washing himself, he heard a different voice outside his tent, calling to him to step outside. He stepped outside, and there stood the Lord. The darkened evening sky was pale with His holy light.  
“My Lord,” Cain bowed. His heart filled doubly with dread, for His presence meant the Truth. “Why do you come down to grace me with your presence?”  
“Cannot a father desire to see his own children?” asked the Divine. He looked at the tired face of Adam’s son, and saw sorrow engraved upon his flesh.  
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”  
“I do not know,” Cain replied. He kept his eyes averted and his face creaseless, but inside, he was weeping. His bitterness showed in his words.  
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”  
Yes. Yes, I am.  
Then the Lord beheld the mark upon his child’s arm, and was angry.  
“What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cried out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”  
“I did it all to save him,” said Cain quietly.  
“So you have—by sin,” said the Lord. “That mark which you have burdened yourself with does not brand you Knight of Hell. In my eyes, you have branded yourself the Father of Murder; the first murderer of many to come. And yet…”  
Cain felt His piercing gaze penetrate his soul.  
“And yet I sense no regret from you. Indeed, you would do it again.”  
“All over,” he replied. “Should circumstances stand the same, I would do it all over again.”  
And then he bowed low before his Father, his head touching the soil under His feet.  
“I shall take leave of you now,” he murmured. “My presence is unclean, and I have defiled this place long enough. I must wander. May your light guide all the others, if not myself, to where my brother rests.”  
When he raised his eyes again, He was gone. 

After a while he raised himself to his feet, and with weak steps returned to his lonely tent. When he stepped inside however, he was not alone. The Morningstar was there, radiant in his raiment of black fire.  
And suddenly, Cain’s vision was filled with the hateful glories of Hell. Scenes of slaughter, torment, and eternal suffering opened before his blinded eyes, and he could smell fiery lakes of burning sulfur and decaying souls. Suffocating fume seemed to rise all around him and smother what temptation to live that had lingered inside his breast.  
Though he did not see, Lucifer smiled.  
“Welcome to your life, Cain.”


End file.
